Police use rubber bullets
Opposition speaks of 300,000 demonstrators in Istanbul
Updated on March 21, 2025 – 9:04 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
After the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Turkey is excited. Hundreds of thousands take to protest.
According to his party, hundreds of thousands of people have participated in the new protests against the arrest of the Mayor of Istanbul and opposition politician Ekrem Imamoglu alone. “We are 300,000 people,” called the Chairman of Imamoglus Party Chp, Özgür Özel, on Friday of the crowd gathered in front of the town hall. The demonstrators would have gathered at various locations in the city due to road closures and bridge closures.
The police were performing with pepper spray and rubber shot against the demonstrators, as an AFP correspondent reported. In the city of Izmir in the west of Türkiye, the officials used tear gas and water cannons to drag the participants of a further rally of the opposition, as the broadcaster Halk TV reported.
Imamoglu, who is considered one of the promising rivals of long -term president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was arrested in his house after a raid on Wednesday morning. In addition to him, more than a hundred other people were arrested, including employees, MPs and CHP members. On Sunday, IMAMOGLU is to be officially chosen as his party’s candidate for the presidential election in 2028 on Sunday.
According to the public prosecutor, the 53-year-old mayor of Istanbul is accused of corruption and extortion. He is accused of being the leader of a “criminal organization”. According to the Ministry of Justice, another accusation is “support of terrorism”. It is about alleged connections to the forbidden workers’ party Kurdistan (PKK).
